Many activities require a helmet to protect the head of an individual, such as for example activities in the fields of military, building, mining, and in particular sports such as flying (paragliding, hang gliding), mountaineering, skating, and cycling. In all cases the helmet is generally held on the head with straps running under the chin, which must be adjusted to fit the individual, with generally a first strap running from the helmet, over the temple region and down to the chin and often a second strap starting from behind the ear and joining the first strap to further stabilize the helmet. As a rule of thumb, the more extreme is the activity and stronger is an expected impact, the more a helmet is required and the more tightly the straps must be adjusted, For example, the death in March 2003 of the professional cyclist Andrei Kivilev prompted the authorities to introduce a regulation for the mandatory use of a helmet in official races.
When for leisure users of e.g., bicycles, it is generally stipulated that the straps should be adjusted such that it should not be possible to insert more than one finger's thickness between the strap and the throat (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet), it is clear that professional riders wear their helmets even more tightly. In many cases the wearer of a helmet must also wear spectacles, to protect its eyes from the speed, insects, rain, sun, or for eye correction like the cyclist Tony Rominger who had poor eyesight. Spectacles are usually held on the nose by a bridge between the two eyepieces and by temple arms resting on top and the back of the ears. It can be very cumbersome and uncomfortable when wearing a helmet tightly strapped on one's head by a sling running over the temple region under the chin to wear spectacles with temple arms squeezed between the straps and the wearer's temples and uncomfortably resting on the ears. Furthermore, the handling of the eyewear during one such activities as described above, which can generally be done with one hand only, such as putting on, removing, tilting, or running the spectacles down the bridge of the nose in case of mist, rain, sudden change in luminosity or the like can be difficult, if not dangerous, with the helmet straps on the way. Alternatively, the temple arms may run over the straps, but this solution excessively strains the ear base as the temple arms are pulled outwards by the thickness of the straps.
For a closely related problem of people wearing noise protection or radio transmission ear muffs who must wear spectacles, a solution is proposed in DE19934958 wherein the temple arms of the spectacles can be fixed to the head arch of wearer. For instance, slots may be provided in the thickness of the head arch to receive the temple arms of the spectacles. Alternatively, magnets can be used.
WO2005076055 and WO2007141614 propose a headwear, such as a helmet or a cap, comprising a brim comprising extension structures fixed to the underside of said brim and comprising means for holding eyeglasses. In particular, elongated rods are fixed on one end to the brim and the other end, hanging down from the brim, comprise a hook, possibly magnetic, to support the spectacles bridge or temple arms. This solution, however, does not address the presence of a helmet strap intercepting spectacles temple arms in the wearer's temporal region.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,892,393 and US2010/0154093 disclose a helmet having a front brim continuous with a rim extending along each opposite side of the safety helmet adjacent to a pair of rim slots in the rim of the safety helmet. The eye wear has a right and a left temple arms. Each of the right and left temple arms has (a) a slide frame adapted to be suspended below the rim and to extend toward the front brim, and (b) at least one tong adapted to be removably and dependently attached from below to a corresponding one of the rim slots in the helmet for supporting the side frame. The lens is attached distally between the right and the lift structures and can pivot under the front brim between a lowered and a raised position and still remain subjacent to the front brim. The right and left structures are adjustable to provide an adjustable orientation of the lens while in the lowered position. This solution requires multiple components which are quite complex, voluminous, and heavy, which would not reach the standards of high level competitor's requirements.